


the party could be just us two

by eggosandxmen



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Autistic Character, F/M, Moodring Hair, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22680571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggosandxmen/pseuds/eggosandxmen
Summary: Lydia Deetz-Maitland picks up the pieces.
Relationships: Adam Maitland/Barbara Maitland, Beetlejuice & Lydia Deetz, Charles Deetz/Delia Deetz
Comments: 8
Kudos: 151





	the party could be just us two

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone and their mother has written a reunion fic, but I don’t care. I wanted an excuse to have Beej call Lyds scarecrow, which is maybe my favorite nickname ever.
> 
> Title from The Party Goes With You from 35mm.

Lydia, upon reaching the two-month anniversary of the Incident, can proudly report that she is still strange and unusual. It was the main thing she was scared of losing, Directly After; maybe the ghosts would wipe her memory or something, or Adam and Barbara would leave home for the Netherworld at last, leaving her with a perfectly nuclear family.

Spoiler alert: they didn’t, and are now firmly members of the Deetz-Maitland family as a whole; Barbara and Charles get along well, bonding over being terrified of being bad parents and ending up simply really enjoying each other’s company, but really all four of them have good relationships with each other, which Lydia is incredibly thankful for.

(She started calling Adam and Barbara mom and dad a few weeks after everything, after sitting down with Charles and having a proper conversation about it. He supports her in it, though the eventual slew of two-sided dad jokes may have not been worth it, nor are the constant circles of askyourmother-askyourfather. Lydia gets her revenge, though— she has two #1 dad mugs, which she steals every time one of her fathers make a terrible joke.)

One important development of the past few months is that Lydia has at last learned to concentrate her strangeness. She’d started in the library— both the public one near her school and the Netherworld’s— learning what old wives’ tales and urban legends really work (for example, broken mirrors are best to be avoided, while black cats are perfectly alright to adopt and bring home and beg all four of your parents to keep until they eventually relent, hoping you’ll be able to learn responsibility for another living being rather than a bunch of dead ones, and really you aren’t doing badly at all, and they’re all very proud of you), along with rationing chalk boxes and checking into the Netherworld once a week or so after school, because now that Juno’s dead the office-running civil servants have a little more free time. Even with having to fix up the Netherworld, they’re usually perfectly willing to help with her calc homework on the condition that she keeps them all updated on news from upstairs.

She has stim toys stored in her bag. She’s got friends at school, in the drama program where she makes costumes and in the photography club. She tries to get eight hours of sleep a night, and she’s okay.

But.

There’s still an ever-present ache that she’s missing something. From talks with her therapist (who, you know, barely knows anything that actually happened, but is helping regardless) and, at various points, all of her parents, she’s come to the conclusion that it’s Beej.

Of course she’s still sort of mad at him. Discounting everything he did to her, he almost exorcised Barbara for no apparent reason, along with kissing the Maitlands with no permission. But he’s still, without hesitation or question, her best friend.

Wherever he is.

Currently, Lydia’s on her bed after school on a Wednesday afternoon, trying her best to finish her chemistry homework while a perfectly good volume on rural New England hauntings is on her dresser a few feet away. But chemistry is okay— it’s wrapped in photography, which helps her pay attention. So she’s trying to stay focused.

When there’s a tapping on the window, she assumes it’s a bird, and then a branch, and then when she finally looks up she’s figuring Delia got stuck cleaning the gutters again and—

Strike out.

There’s a demon at her windowsill.

It’s raining, so Beetlejuice’s hair is plastered against his forehead, a soft magenta with streaks of dark blue, and when she all but sprints to the window to slam it open, he jumps, the tips of his hair going white. 

“Hey, scarecrow,” he says, his voice cracking a little. “Nice to see you.”

She pulls him in and just stares at him for a few seconds before pulling him into a tight hug. He smells like dirt after the rain and sweat, and his suit feels just as strangely soft as it used to when they danced.

He’s shaking hard and she refuses to close her eyes even as she holds onto him, feeling him wrap his arms around her. Neither of them say anything, not letting go as she takes him over to her bed. They sit down, mutually, and when they finally let go, both reculantly, Beej starts playing with a hole in his pants and shaking the water out of his hair, not looking at her. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Lydia asks at last, pushing aside her chemistry as she avoids the water, hugging her knees to her chest. “Where have you been?”

“Went adventuring around for a bit,” he replies, running a hand through his hair (now back to the magenta). “Ended up in Sandworm Land for a while there, which was terrifying, but at least I know Sandy’s alright. Figured I’d pop in, make sure your parents haven’t locked you in a mental asylum or something—“

“BJ,” she sighs fondly, “you know all four of my parents were there and two of them are ghosts? They know what happened actually happened.”

“Nonetheless!” he says, finally cracking a smile. “My former best friend is a demon is a little weird for anyone to come to terms wi—“

“Current best friend,” Lydia interrupts, crossing her arms. “I’m still mad, but that doesn’t mean you’re not my best friend.”

He almost wilts at that, his hair going a much darker blue. “We… need to talk about that, huh?” 

“Yup.” Lydia rubs at her eyes. “Haunting a house isn’t a healthy coping mechanism. We have to talk about what happened.”

“How do we even start that can of worms?” Beej asks, manifesting a can of worms and sipping it like it’s a carton of juice. He offers some to Lydia and she shakes her head.

“Well, first I want to say sorry for killing you.” He nods, waving her off, and she doesn’t quite think he’s ready to talk about it, so she moves on. “Okay. And then, I think we should start on why you got so mad when I said I wanted to get my mom.” she glances up at him. “I don’t get it.”

“You were leaving,” he says, bits of red creeping into his hair. “Leaving me alone again to get some— some stupid adult who’d tell us what to do!”

“Beej, that’s not what I meant to do.” 

“I know that now, but in case you couldn't tell, my mom isn’t a great gage of parents, so I thought— I thought I’d have to leave again. And I didn’t want to.” He stretches across the bed, flopping onto Lydia’s pillow and staring at the ceiling. “I guess it wasn’t too fair of me.”

“You guess?” She raises an eyebrow, and he groans. 

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry, Lyds. I did a lot of shitty things. And I’ll- I mean, I want to fix it. I did some talkin’ to Miss A about boundaries and all, and— I need to say sorry to the Maitlands, especially. And t’ you.”

“Now, was that so hard?” she teases, even as she smiles wide. He said sorry— he’s accepting that he did something wrong.

He’s trying to be better.

“Y’re killing me, babes. Killing me.”

“Oh, I know. That’s why you love me.”

His hair goes bright pink. “Shut up.”

“Beej has feeeeeeeelings—“

“Shut up!” he laughs, picking her up with his powers and flipping her upside down. She giggles, and—

Oh. 

She isn’t missing anyone anymore.

“You gotta stay,” she says, still upside down. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too, kid, but there’s no way your parents—“

“Dad!” Lydia screams, cutting him off as he drops her in surprise before she grabs his wrist and drags him out the door and down the stairs. “Mother! Other dad! Mom!”

She stumbles into the kitchen, Beej slamming against her in the sudden stop. Charles, Delia, and the Maitlands all sit at the kitchen table, Charles reading a newspaper, Adam building a figure, Delia reading over Charles’ shoulder, and Barbara knitting. They all look up in surprise.

“Beetlejuice is back and I think he gets to stay!” Lydia shouts, the arm not currently held onto by Beej flapping as hard as she can. “He said sorry!”

Beej curls behind Lydia, shifting himself to fit, and Lydia takes his hand and squeezes it. “Really! Come on—“

“Lydia,” Barbara says carefully. “Could you please step away from him?”

“No, he’s shaking and I want to make sure he’s alright,” she states. “Unless I interpreted your tone wrong?”

“You did, honey, but that’s okay, don’t worry,” Barbara sighs. “As long as he isn’t going to hurt you.”

“I won’t!” Beej squawks. “I can only go so low. Even I wouldn’t hurt her, come on, Barbara—“

“Beej,” Lydia says, and he stops. She looks at all her parents and then back to him, and he does a very dramatic sigh. “Say your piece.”

“I’m sorry.” He stops, glances at her, and continues. “Chuck, I’m sorry I tried to marry your kid. Delia, too. And for taking over your house. Maitlands, I— for everything. I’m sorry I hid your handbook and I’m sorry for kissing you all those times and I’m really sorry for almost exorcising you, Babs.”

They all stare at him and Lydia nods in approval. “And he shouldn’t have to be alone. We can help. Not- not fix him, he doesn’t need to be fixed, just try to help him learn how to be good.”

Beej squeezes her hand, hair shifting to teal.

Her parents turn to look at each other; Charles raises his eyebrows, Barbara does the same, and the four of them have a very intense conversation with only their eyes.

“Fine,” Charles sighs at last. “Okay.”

Beej’s hair goes bright, bright green before sinking back to a soft blue; Lydia lets go of him at last to hug all four of them.

“Okay,” Adam says, ever the planner, as he hugs his daughter back. “What now?”

**Author's Note:**

> This is COMFORT BULLSHIT and I have some other stuff in the works that will come out soon hopefully. In the meantime, shoutout to my mad scientist and my scarecrow; they were the reasons I wrote this. love you both!! Also, in my opinion, the autistic characters are Lydia, Beej, Delia, and Adam, just in case you were wondering.


End file.
